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Wolfgang Rasolam
Wolfgang Rasolam is a 24 year old Thyferran male and a member of the prominent Rasolam Family, who owns industries on the planet of origin. Originally a studious and book smart individual, he turned his attention, much to his father's displeasure due to family losses in the past, to the Imperial Army. He enlisted into the First "Immortal" Legion, where he serves as diligently, facilitating his duties as an infantryman and writing tactical and strategic literature. The Rasolam Family With industry and commerce on Thyferra dominated by the Vratix, the Rasolam family made their fortune by appealing to Imperial xenophobia, beginning as a small time "Quality Assurance Firm" that insured that "aliens did not in any way sabotage or contaminate medicinal goods," according to the RasCorp charter. As time went on and the firm increased in funding, they later opened a second family firm known as Rasolam Health and Life Insurance, expanding the family's already considerable wealth. As the family businesses expanded, and RasCorp moved from Quality Assurance to a shipping and marketing firm, once more insuring "quality medicine for quality humans" across the galaxy. Naturally, the xenophobia inherent in the company resulted in strained relations with the Vratix of Thyferra, taking form in several petty crimes and trumped up political scandals. Contrary to the original intent of the brigands who sabotaged RasCorp materials, the Rasolam family was able to mark the losses off as terrorist activities, which resulted in an expansion in operations, enhanced security grants from the Empire, and a tax exemption, effectively boosting the company's profits by twenty percent. With the constant increases in business and rapid growth of the two companies, the Rasolam family took on a clan like nature, with different members of the family taking over different posts of the twin companies. Johannes Rasolam registered as the patriarch of the family. As the owner of majority shares in both companies, he also appointed himself as Over Chief-Executive-Officer of both companies. His brother, Emanuel became Vice Chair of both companies, officially CEO of Rasolam Insurance Corp. Remaining command posts were handed over to other higher family members, with priority given based on the closeness in the family tree to Johannes, with his wife, Katrin, dealing with company diplomacy, specifically with government officials. Following a number of scandals, and Imperial officials learning that Emanuel was intentionally sabotaging select bacta supplies in order to increase insurance rates, the Rasolam family industries fell under hard times. When Johannes refused to provide his brother with the funds necessary to bribe his way out of ensuing legal proceedings, and even suggested he was going to turn him over to Imperial authorities, Emanuel shot himself in his office. In agreement with Imperial authorities, Johannes voluntarily handed his shares over to Imperial authorities at less than market price, and auctioned off the company's remaining capital to cover punitive costs for the incident. RasCorp found its clientele increasingly distrustful over the Emanuel Scandals - therefore in a move to get out of media attention, Johannes merged the company with Solovek Solutions Inc., a primarily Vratix owned corporation and chief business rivals. Rasolam and Solovek flourished once more. Johannes still remained a hated figure among the Vratix community - which was a point of contention with the company Board of Directors. The Rasolam patriarch found himself at odds with the more highly structured Solovek methods, familiar with having an almost absolute authority over the previous RasCorp. Johannes eventually disappeared from public life for a year when Katrin was involved in a tragic speeder accident. After several months of intensive care at Imperial facilities, she succumbed to her wounds, and the patriarch of the Rasolam family, although retaining all rights of his office, showed up to work less and less. It was explained that he was in mourning, and his absence was excused. A year later he returned after remarrying to a Kuati woman named Federina. Although clearly distant due to the loss of his first wife, he had a new zeal for his job - and was determined to rebuild RasCorp. After a series of bold and risky moves, he bought back a number of the shares and was able to oust Waylen Solovek, renaming the company one more time to Rasolam Systems Inc. Johannes had two children with Katrin, who found it difficult to cope with their mother's death and their father's swift re-marriage. His eldest son with Katrin, Antonio, attempted to patch strained relations with the Empire by enlisting in the Imperial Army, but was killed in an accident shortly after graduating from OCS, depriving Johannes of his first choice of an heir. His eldest daughter, Rebecca, graduated from an Alderaanian Med School, and now has a successful practice on Thyferra, receiving discount prices from Rasolam Systems. Johannes later had three more children with Federina - he named his son Wolfgang, and his two daughters Venessa and Pedera, the latter after his aunt. Wolfgang's Childhood Wolfgang Rasolam was born half a year into Johannes's marriage with Federina as the younger brother to Antonio. He grew to idolize his brother, and was personally devastated by his death. He was supported through it by Rebecca, who replaced Antonio as the role model, as Johannes was often too busy with business or grieving over his own two losses. The boy's childhood was otherwise normal for a high-classed Thyferran native. He was often distracted by his studies and junior business apprenticeship programs. Wolfgang took a particular interest in literary arts and music, to the distaste of his father who encouraged him to focus on business. As a twelfth birthday present, Johannes took his son to an opera entitled The Pirates of Fakir, which encouraged the boy to take several more music classes in his schools. He impressed his teachers by composing his own miniature opera he called Antonio and the Vratix, which was thought to be a tribute to his older brother, but he insisted it was meant to be a comedy. As Wolfgang entered adolescence he showed little aptitude for business, and so it was decided that Johannes would split his shares with him and his sisters in his will. Although disappointed at the monetary loss, Wolfgang was ultimately pleased that the burden of corporate ownership was lifted from his shoulders. He took up a fascination with history to supplement his love for music and literature, which grew into a personal interest in military history. He amassed a library of books on military theory and history, and later expressed interest to his father in possibly joining army. Although Johannes was initially dubious to the idea due to his memories of Antonio's accident, he warmed to the idea, and encouraged a career in military service for his son. Perhaps, he reasoned, that would even encourage him to take over Rasolam Systems after he had taken on some responsibility. Wolfgang's Adulthood Wolfgang excelled in school - and his grades allowed him to breeze through the exams required to get into any of the universities of his choice. While his father encouraged he go to Reena University in the Tapani Sector, Wolfgang insisted he go to the University of Charmath, taking particular interest in its focus on history. He declined a scholarship to the Imperial University in Thené, opting for a non-aligned academy. As he shipped off for the university, Johannes arranged a marriage to Efina Olkadie, 19 year old daughter of a major advertising and shipping tycoon Jerald Olkadie. It was a loveless relationship - but Wolfgang remained ultimately loyal, recognizing the benefits of the marriage. He made an effort to stay in contact with her for the duration of their relationship, but she continued to grow increasingly distant from him. Wolfgang thought nothing of it as he continued his studies, allowing the relationship to fall to the wayside as he maintained his faith in her loyalty to him while working at the university. It was later learned that the distance was a result of her maintaining a physical relationship with a low-born Kuati shipyard worker. The marriage arrangements were called off immediately, and Jerald strove diligently to try to maintain relations with the Rasolam family. He even disowned Efina and offered to marry his younger daughter to Wolfgang, but the damage had been done. Johannes promised to maintain workable relations with the company, but neither he nor Wolfgang intended to marry again into the family. Wolfgang, feeling betrayed by the incident, developed a reputation on campus as a womanizer. For his third semester it began to affect his grades - which resulted in a massive shift in priorities. He distanced himself from the women of the campus, and managed to graduate at the top of his class. After graduating from the University of Charmath, he mulled about his career options. He assisted his father for a short time, before taking another two years of studies in military theory and music - re-igniting his childhood passions for opera and history. In his spare time, Wolfgang wrote a second, more serious opera he titled The Maid, which played for a short time in Theed. Wolfgang Now Armed with his education and a handful of life experiences, the now 24 year old Wolfgang is interested in pursuing a high life in the Imperial Army. Philosophically in line with the concept of strictly enforced law and order, he finds himself attracted to the discipline and art of the military. He was profoundly influenced by military theorist Swanson Petrarch's essay entitled "The Music of Warfare", comparing military strategy to operas. He currently envisions himself attempting to enroll in an Imperial Academy - seeking an officership in the Imperial Army. Armed with a small monetary donation from his father, he has begun his search for fulfillment on the galactic theater, while maintaining ties to his large, but closely knit family. Personality Wolfgang is a dutiful Imperial infantryman who specializes in the study of tactical and strategic literature, and often applies these to his interactions with fellows. Often times he is described as distant to fellow soldiers, because of his own inability to directly connect or bond with fellows Imperials. Nevertheless he is known as reliable, punctual, and devoted. Taking his job extremely seriously, he has been complimented for his emphasis on professionalism, which has created something of a small rift between him and the soldiers immediately under his command due to his strict adherence to regulation and procedure. His upbringing gives him an emphatic pleasure in expensive delights - when he is not on duty or is not in a smoke free zone, he is seen with his pipe, lit or unlit, dangling from his lips, usually reading old books, datapads, or writing notes and literature of his own. Beliefs A traditionalist and a loyalist, Wolfgang puts emphasis on the secular here and now - he was described by some during his basic training as an agnostic - acknowledging the indisputable existence of the Force while not throwing beliefs in any structural religion or organization devoted to it. He states that he believes that in addition to the Force, a being of some sort most likely exists responsible for the creation of the Universe, but once more he professes that he is simply a form of deist, and bases his beliefs on a variety of doctrines across a variety of cultures. Wolfgang officially denies any connection with the Force. "While logically we are all scientifically connected to it through medichlorians," he said once, "I don't particularly believe that I am any more 'in touch' with it than anyone else." He went on to explain his opposition to organized Force using in general. "The Empire clearly shows a favoritism to the ways of the Sith, but in truth I simply don't know much about them to give you an educated opinion. Do I like them? I don't know, I've never met one, and they tend to keep their teachings and legends to themselves, and so it really would be out of place for me to comment on them. But on the matter of Jedi? I am entirely opposed." Anti-Jedi Stance Although from a dutifully Imperial family, Wolfgang found himself involved in a number of debates in his universities from some who showed favoritism towards the Jedi. He has expressed a clearly anti-Jedi sentiment, referring to them as "hypocrites" "liars" and "charlatans". "Logically if we're all connected to the Force, what makes a Jedi any different from an average citizen?" he said in research paper at his university. "If we're all in touch with the Force, then there's no logical reason why a bias needs to be shown to a select elite in order to try to diminish the rights of others. The entire Clone Wars were a direct result of an attempted quasi-religious stranglehold on a handful of laser sword wielding religious fanatics. In the order of the galaxy, they ranked somewhere beneath smugglers and above sex slave traffickers in the galaxy's list of fiendish professions." He was, of course, careful to explain the difference between the Sith and the Jedi in this regard. "Once more my dissertations and assertions against Jedi do not extend to the Sith by simple nature that I do not have the information on hand to make a calculated conclusion. However it is safe to say that the galaxy by and large, even with heavy Sith influence on Imperial culture, is very secular and government oriented, regardless of the role this shadowy group plays in government. To this end, they are already superior bedfellows to the Jedi." He went on to explain that he felt that the Jedi showed "ethnic biases" in their decisions, and would often times "force integration where integration even put inferior aliens over superior candidates for the sake of a bizarre form of affirmative action". "A code founded on non-violence that opposes the creation and use of aggressive military force that wants to act as a government's first and last line of defense?" he said in his paper. "The Jedi are so convoluted and filled with contradiction that it was only with their selective purging of other 'Force adepts' that allowed them to stay on the top of the religious hierarchy. The Jedi themselves admit to a systematic annihilation of dissident thought - effectively wiping out Sith out of a fear of difference of opinion. This left the Jedi in a bizarre, ancient stagnation of philosophy from which they never grew out of, and with their decimation at the end of the Clone Wars, it should be clear that the galaxy disagreed on society's desire to move on." Views on the Force Wolfgang particularly abhors the Jedi notion of a "Dark Side" and "Light Side" that act as an evil and noble yin and yang of one another. In his paper he later stated, "If the Jedi feel that the Force is the preeminent non-judgmental super entity that binds all life, then it cannot be in conflict with itself. And yet those who practice Force mysticism in this degree supposed that they can correctly identify when the Force is being misused and when it is being appropriately used. If it is the bringer of life and decider of fate, once must acknowledge that there is more than just one view of the Force, and it itself cannot be evil or good, any more than a hammer is good for building the shack, or evil for clawing in a man's head. It simply is, and the independent actions define good or evil. "The Force is either an energy field that binds all life, or it has two sides that cannot exist with one another compatibly, and one side must be wholly destroyed. And yet only in Jedi doctrine do we find the basis of competing Force factions. Why? It is a systematic attempt to purge intellectual thought and bind the galaxy to a single view, regardless of how out-dated, corrupt, and archaic it may be." Wolfgang received a great deal of criticism for his harsh ideas on the Force. Nevertheless, he strictly maintains that he does not believe the Force has a true Dark or Light Side, and that it simply exists. "Most importantly," he concluded his paper with, "if the Force is our energy field from which we draw life and we are born not necessarily in tune with it without extensive training, it strikes me that to use the Force for an individual's play at magic and mysticism spits in the face of all that this mystical energy field is. In essence, it is man playing God at his best - trying to harness the power of Element itself to effect his surroundings, which is far more deity-like than cloning or surgery." Stance on Charities Although he suggests that the ideas of charities are themselves noble, he has expressed a clear opposition to the idea of donating heavily to charities. The stance closely mirrors his father's - who believes that the idea of organized charities that distribute funds to be little more than sham operations put in place to milk the money with "Administrative costs". When every member of the Board of Directors to Rasolam and Solovek were donating to a disaster relief fund that acted as a charity for Thyferran children, Johannes was the only corporate figurehead to decline to donate. At a press conference he elaborated on his reasoning. "When I want orphans to have money, I have my secretary get me a list of their names, and I write their families checks. If I want starving kids to have food, I buy a ship load of food, and fly it down to the planet in question and give it to them. If a hospital needs medicine, I buy them the medicine - I'm not going to give money to an in-between of dubious credibility." Although heavily criticized for this, the charity in question was later broken up by COMPNOR when it was revealed that the funds were being laundered and sent to a front for the Rebel Alliance. Wolfgang adopts many of the same policies - while he has no qualms with what the charities themselves stand for, he opposes the charities themselves. Political Views Naturally a devout Imperial, Wolfgang was also active in political discussions at his universities. He describes himself as a "Free Market Fanatic", and places value on discipline, order, and security over liberties. While he believes that government should play a limited role in day to day life, he makes a point that if it is the government's task to protect its citizens, then the citizens need to expect to yield to the government's authority. He was a vocal critic of the Old Republic - his Master's Thesis was constructed around the belief that the Empire was but one of many potential outcomes of the Clone Wars. In it, he says, "While it's very possible we got the best of all possible worlds with the rise of the Empire at the end of the Clone Wars, it should be recognized that there were hundreds of possible outcomes, and maybe one or two of them involved the preservation of the Republic. At its barest, it was done, it showed just how ineffective a society constructed around thousands of equal voices really is. "Regardless of one's stance on the breakaway Separatist Movement, you can't deny that their demands in and of themselves weren't unreasonable. They expected fair representation on government with a minimal amount of lobbying against them for political desires, and a more central authority to prevent things from being bogged down in legislative procedure. As long as planetary systems could have their governments ousted by independent corporations while an entire Senate let Wookiees deflect the issues. "Some people like to laud that the Old Republic existed for a thousand generations - that sounds like an awfully long time for a single government to go without change to me." Wolfgang believes that, while the Empire can clearly benefit from any number of changes, that the people in charge of overseeing those changes are the ones to make those decisions, and he is ultimately happy with the government style in question. On the topic of break away groups such as the New Imperial Order he says, "It's brute force democracy. By that, I mean, you've got someone that believes that his vote is so important, that if people don't agree with them, that vote needs to be backed with a blaster. That's not how civilized society works - they had a grievance, they should've tried to resolve it without trying to resort to violence and secession." Wolfgang describes himself as an Imperialist - believing that a strong government has a moral responsibility to dominate weaker governments that cannot provide adequately for their people - and a conservative, specifically decrying civil strife and insurgencies. On the Rebellion he had this to say, "A band of armed thugs - at least the New Imperial Order doesn't pretend that they're not just trying to replace one regime with another. Besides, they hold themselves onto his pedestal of moral supremacy, and they just don't live up to it? How do I know that? Because you aren't a morally pure individual if you run a state of any type, period. Their hands aren't clean, and by making a cornerstone of their politics righteousness, they make themselves instant hypocrites. And if their hands are clean? Then they don't need to be in office, because they live in the same fantasy world that ignited the Clone Wars." Education Wolfgang received a magister's degree in history from the University of Charmath, and an under-magister's in political science. Category: Individuals